Probing the power of entrepreneurship discourse: an immanent critique (original) (raw)
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The Routledge Companion to Entrepreneurship
2014
entrepreneurship creates actual value potential for users to act upon. This act on the part of the user can be a purchase decision. Such an act makes the user (of this potential) into a consumer. The offer-what is there to consume-is the value potential. The decision to purchase means the value of the offer is greater (to the user) than the price at which it can be purchased. An mp3 player, when it first appeared, represented a value offer for a user. Economists interpret the act to purchase it for, say, $200 as the result of an economic decision: my ownership and use of the mp3 player is worth more to me than the price at which it is offered. We all know the economic basis for a purchase decision is but one of many, where aesthetic, social, political and psychological grounds often are of greater importance for explaining the decision to buy. The point here is simply to exemplify entrepreneurship as this social creation process that rigs action in fictional anticipation of actual actionable value potential. For this we have suggested that fabulation (narratively performed imagination; Hjorth 2013) and organization creation (Gartner 2012; Hjorth 2010, 2012a, 2012b) are central. Seeing entrepreneurship as part of the central forces shaping society also makes its philosophy important as it provides concepts for how to reflexively think about this entrepreneurship-society relationship. How is actionable value potential actualized then? Actualization, which has no resemblance to actual models, progresses via differentiation-it creates an original organizational coherence in which new value in turn can be actualized (Hardt 1993). This is creation as no order stands model. This is also why it is driven by fictional anticipation-imagination has to provide the images of what could become actual. We are not yet in the realm of economy here, where we find concepts like risk, uncertainty (Knight 1921) and ambiguity (the latter already at the border of economic thought). Rather, this is thinking's groping after what is not yet there, a becoming sensible of thought. Imagination, Massumi suggests (2002a: 134) can also be called intuition (philosophical intuition concerns that for which there are no facts as yet available; Hofmann 2010), or a feeling of thought groping after the un-thought, a movement in the freedom of the postinstrumental and preoperative. 1 This is where we find entrepreneurship's white canvas (Hjorth 2003), its entre-space (Steyaert 2000) and its space for play (Hjorth 2005). This is thus another way in which we arrive at thinking's challenge in entrepreneurship studies: our study centres on how action is rigged, through social processes of organization creation, in fictional anticipation of actual actionable value potential. There are connections to Kirznerian alertness (if we think this upstream into imagination or intuition) and Shackle (see Popp and Holt 2013) who, when rethinking economy and history, stress inceptive thought, a concept that comes close to what we have described above as fictional anticipation. 2 Philosophy shares this interest with us, and we have much to learn from this 'partnership'.
Challenging the myths of entrepreneurship?
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2013
Entrepreneurship studies started out as a young field, one where a mix of economists, psychologists, geographers and the occasional anthropologist came together to study the wonder and weirdness that is entrepreneurship, in a wide range of fashions and with few a priori assumptions to hold it back. Today, some of this eclecticism lives on in the field, but at the same time we have seen that the field has matured and its popularity has led to the field becoming increasingly institutionalized -and thereby beset by an increasing number of assumptions, even myths. Consequently, this special issue queries some of the assumptions and potential myths that flourish in the field, inquiring critically into the constitution of entrepreneurship as a field of research -all in order to develop the same. Without occasions where a field can question even its most deeply held beliefs, we are at risk of becoming ideologically rather than analytically constituted, which is why we in this special issue wanted to create a space for the kind of critical yet creative play that e.g. Sarasvathy (2004) has encourages the field to engage with.
Understanding how entrepreneurship contributes to sustainable economic development requires an occasional reconfiguration and reconceptualisation of the elationship between the two. This point is perhaps particularly critical at a point in time when we are beginning to realise the impact of potential tectonic shifts in our environmental, ecological, economic and social landscapes. Implicit assumptions about the value of economic growth and the entrepreneurial residual can detract from an appreciation of the real contribution of entrepreneurship – the generation and re-alisation of opportunity for economic, social and cultural value creation. The value nexus – economic , social and cultural – recognises the " dynamics of the societies within which growth occurs " (Aureswald and Acs, 200) Its neglect ignores the vital role of entrepreneurship in different forms of capitalism (Gray, 18). The economic crisis of our times and its tentative institutional solutions are a function of that neglect in that they: • rely more on fiscal and other stimuli grounded in notions of Keynesian plenitude rather than addressing the need for structural, institutional change to combat systemic failure brought about by destructive forms of entrepreneurship; • ignore the varied forms of capitalism manifest in the reality of true entrepreneurial activities in different locations across the world; • fail to grasp that the higher value of entrepreneurship that permeates our economic, social and cultural activities, and which in turn define value creation for individuals, organisations and the wider environment; and • miss the connectivities between the economic crisis and other critical phenomena that impact on us, such as environmental degradation, income disparities, and how opportunity recognition rather than a pure pursuit of economic growth, can offer potential solutions. This conceptual paper provides insights into some of the issues described above. It examines the different routes and trajectories of entrepreneurship, the consideration of which should allow us to mark out the fields of future research and policy making. Beyond regression and instead of re-ductionist approaches that often confuse entrepreneurship with one unit of questionable entre-preneurial activity – the small business – there lies possibilities of identifying, exploring, investi
Entrepreneurship: multiple meanings and consequences
International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2004
Aim of the paper is to question for the meaning of entrepreneurship. A view through relevant pieces of the literature indicates that no consensual understanding exists about the understanding of the term. The most conventual practise is to translate entrepreneurship with self-employment. In this sense, the political postulated need to strengthen entrepreneurship will mean consequently to strengthen the ratio of self-employment. What is taken tooless into account, however, is the fact that even self-employment is fragmented into different classes of actors having different socioeconomic attributes, rationalities, and related biographies. Among this category of people, one may find the potential keys for future positive developments as well as one can meet with just the opposite, eg. people who are settled here since they have no other chances in the labour market for getting a job and related income. One of the conclusions is that entrepreneurship has multiple meanings and consequences.
Untangling the concept of entrepreneurship towards a common perspective
African Journal of Business Management, 2018
There continues to be a lack of a commonly agreed perspective of entrepreneurship despite the concept being studied for a long period of time. Definitions of the concept and constructs of study in the field have depended on the researcher's conceptualisation of what constitutes entrepreneurship and as a result there are variations in the study focus and measurement of entrepreneurship. An analysis of literature was therefore conducted to untangle the concept of entrepreneurship towards a common perspective despite similar failed attempts by scholars in the past. The analysis showed that researchers and theorists trace entrepreneurship through the same early theorists that include Cantillon, Say, Marshall, Walker, von Thunen, Menger, von Mises, Schumpeter, Knight, Kirzner, Shane and Venkataraman etc. That means the background to the concept is the same but with varying interpretations. The underlying perspective however is that entrepreneurship is a human behaviour with identifiable driving motives and it requires definitive competencies; skills, knowledge and abilities. The behaviour is purposively exerted, involves various activities and judgmental decisions that are undertaken through a process of identifying, evaluating and exploiting opportunities to create socioeconomic value under conditions of uncertainty. Although the socioeconomic value manifests in new products or services, new sources of supplies, new methods of production, new markets and/or new organisations, it is the new organisation that is commonly recognised as the output of the entrepreneurship process. This perspective narrows and limits the understanding of the concept of entrepreneurship to new and small business ventures with implications on measurement of entrepreneurship. Our analysis shows that all variations of entrepreneurship such as sole entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, necessity motivated entrepreneurship, opportunity motivated entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship etc are connected within the broader view of the same concept, thereby presenting a common perspective of entrepreneurship.
Paraphernalias of Entrepreneurship – A Contemplating Outlook
International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2019
Entrepreneurship is the impetus for development of any nation. Entrepreneurship has been the modern way of the industrialisation process which revolutionised the present day of living. In today's world, entrepreneurship has become an act of inspiration which eventually has had a compounding effect on society, and nations as a whole, benefiting mankind. The world is going through a new phase where people no longer just depend on industries to thrive, but come up with an idea reinventing themselves, eventually establishing a start-up. The act of reinventing oneself is nothing but an act of entrepreneurship which is believed to all businesses. The present article deals with ubiquitous issues ranging from entrepreneurial outlook in India and globally, factors influencing entrepreneurship, Global scenario of ease of doing business and many more issues which needs to be prioritised to set the pace for entrepreneurship to flourish.